Survey Finds US Teens Upped Daily Facebook Usage in 2016

Roughly two-thirds of teens say they use the platform daily

A UBS Evidence Lab survey added yet more evidence that teens are not abandoning Facebook.

The November 2016 survey found that 65% of teens said they used Facebook daily, up from 59% in November 2014. And despite concerns that teens are abandoning Facebook for other social networks, daily usage among teens remains higher for Facebook than for any other social network, including Snapchat and Instagram.

A November 2016 survey from RBC Capital Markets also found that time spent with Facebook has grown among a significant share of teens. About one in three 13- to 18-year-olds said that their Facebook usage has increased over the past year, while a similar number said they expected to use it about the same amount of time, and slightly smaller number said they used it less. As for the coming year, 13% say they think their usage of the social network will rise, though 19% expect it to decline.

Meanwhile, the UBS survey found that teens were more likely to engage with ads, as well. Some 44% of 13- to 17-year-olds said they liked, commented or tagged an ad as of November 2016, up 11 percentage points from November 2014. The percentage of teens who visited an advertiser's store or website jumped from 17% to 30% between the same time period, while the percentage of teens who reposted an ad or shared an ad more than doubled from in the two-year timespan.

Usage may be up, but that doesn't mean Facebook is teens' favored social spot. A survey from Only 13% of teens said Facebook was their most preferred social network in a survey from Piper Jaffray, compared to 35% and 24% who named Snapchat and Instagram as their favorite, respectively.

"Facebook may not be the most fun part of teens' social media usage these days," said eMarketer senior analyst Mark Dolliver. "However, penetration is so high that it's well suited for more utilitarian purposes, like finding out when to show up for some event or connecting with someone for a group homework project. For that reason alone, the notion of a teen exodus from Facebook is likely to remain pretty mythical for the foreseeable future."